More heartbreaking details have been revealed about the final days of the woman who was found "melted into a couch" after her parents pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Lacey Fletcher died at the age of 36 in January 2022, with her case shocking the world after she was found emaciated and "fused" to a couch she had been on for a very long time.
The 36-year-old, who reportedly had autism, weighed just 100 pounds (45kg) at the time of her death, with her parents claiming she refused to eat when they tried to feed her, which led to her being unable to leave the couch and eventually dying.
However, the coroner who attended her death has revealed he did not see any food available to Lacey, and tragically found evidence she'd tried to eat the foam from the couch cushions to survive.
Dr. Ewing Bickham was the coroner called to the horrifying scene after Lacey's parents - Clay and Sheila Fletcher - called 911 to report that she was not breathing.
He told NewsNation that it was the worst death he'd seen throughout his career and that he was unable to stop crying or eat for a week after examining her, admitting: "It still bothers me today."
Lacey was found severely emaciated and with pressure sores, with some wounds even being so severe that bones were visible. It was also documented that her body had become infested with maggots prior to her death as she was left sitting in her own excrement for so long.
When asked whether there was any evidence of food available to Lacey, who was unable to move from the couch due to the effects the prolonged neglect had had on her body, Dr Bickham revealed that the only thing he saw nearby was a small bag of sweets.
"The only thing I saw was a small bag of hard candy, and that was it. That's the only nourishment she probably had," he revealed.
Tragically, he believes that Lacey had tried to eat the foam from the cushions around her in order to survive and stave off the hunger, adding: "I'll just be not trying to be too graphic, but in her stomach, she had the yellow foam from the sofa, and feces. So you take it from there."
Her parents, both 66, were arrested and indicted on second-degree murder charges, for which they pleaded not guilty for the past 18 months, before pleading guilty to lesser charges of manslaughter this week.
Lacey's cause of death was ruled to be sepsis resulting from "severe chronic neglect".
Despite the heartbreaking end of her life, Lacey appeared to be a happy young girl, with photos from her younger years showing her smiling and posing with the volleyball team she was part of at school, before being homeschooled from the ninth grade.
Robert Blades, 61, who was a neighbor of the family, said that Lacey was "just a normal fun kid" before she vanished from sight 15 years ago, after her parents claimed she had also developed "anxiety" and took her to psychologists, according to the Daily Mail.
While the parents' attorneys argued that they had never intended for Lacey's condition to deteriorate so much and that they had struggled with her medical conditions, Dr Bickham explained just how horrific the conditions he found her in were.
He explained: "When I walked in, the house smelled of a stench of, it smelled like a sewer, or septic tank and also a smell of death. I've never smelled that in my life.
"I've dealt with decomposed bodies. I've dealt with all sorts of death, degradation, whatever, never experienced this in all of my career."
He added: "I've never seen a homicide like this. I have never seen an individual, a human being, literally tortured and allowed to die while she is alive.
"I've never seen that my life. I've seen decomposed bodies of someone that drowns and you find the body a week later.
"That's one thing and they're decomposed. Lacey did not decompose. She rotted in her own body, in that hole in that sewer, in the couch."
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